Programs and events 2005

Cheney placing candle at Memorial (AP Photo/Jockel Finck)

Vice President Cheney was one of 40 state leaders from around the world who attended ceremonies commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp on January 27. (Photo gallery)

The ceremonies, cloaked in snow and freezing temperatures, took place in
front of the International Monument to the Victims of Auschwitz. Some five
thousand people, including as many as a thousand survivors from the camp sat
in the audience.

The audience sat near where, 60 years ago, newly arrived prisoners came down
a rail car loading ramp to be selected by the Nazis for either forced labor
or death by gassing.

Prisoners at Auschwitz were liberated January 27, 1945, by members of the
Red Army.

On January 28, the Vice President tours Auschwitz privately and then returns
home.